It is common knowledge that professional ironing machines for ironing clothes are used in the industrial laundry sector or for industrial ironing in general.
With particular reference to ironing the crease of trousers, machines are known comprising a supporting structure of a horizontal resting surface for trousers and a press associated with the supporting structure that moves close to and away from the resting surface.
The press generally has a plurality of steam blow holes and is connected to a steaming system.
Before ironing, an operator lays the trousers on the resting surface, paying particular attention to laying them correctly in order to make the crease along the length of the trousers, at the front and back of the legs.
To iron the trousers, the press is then lowered and put on top of the resting surface with the simultaneous emission of steam from the blow holes.
These known machines are not, however, without drawbacks, among which is the difficulty of the manual operation in positioning the trousers on the resting surface, before they are ironed, wasting a considerable amount of time and labour.
Another problem with this embodiment is the fact it is impossible to iron well in the area between the crutch and the waistband, meaning manual interventions are then necessary which waste still more time and labour.
A second type of known machine entails a supporting frame with a compartment for housing a pair of vertical steam pressing plates, facing each other and moving to and away from each other.
A rigid ironing board and covered with an appropriate transpiring material (e.g. fabric), is associated with the supporting frame, parallel to the plates and movable thanks to the action of actuator means from a position outside the compartment to a position inside the compartment, with interposition between the pressing plates.
Such machines also comprise supporting means to support a pair of trousers, of the spring clip, hanger type or the like; the trousers are positionable with the legs extended along the opposite sides of the ironing plate, respectively.
Before ironing, an operator positions the trousers by hand on the ironing board. The ironing board is then moved inside the compartment, between the pressing plates which come close to each other and steam iron the trousers.
Once the ironing board has been moved back into the position outside the compartment the trousers can be removed for the next finishing phases.
Although these machines do partly simplify the manual operation of positioning the trousers on the ironing board, they still have some drawbacks.
The supporting means, in fact, have to be suitably adapted, before ironing can be done, to allow the correct positioning of trousers of different sizes, lengths, widths and styles with a waste of time and use of labour that all contribute in increasing the overall cost of the ironing process.
In addition, while ironing, creases are normally formed in the crutch of the trousers which have to be put right in subsequent manual finishing operations, costly in terms of time and labour.